Wednesday, March 4, 2015

This morning we toured one of our local fire stations, it turned out to be extra exciting.
We started the tour meeting Firefighter Greg. He told us some rules for our tour. When we enter the truck area we would be meeting on a mat and if the alarm was to go we were to stay on the mat to be safe. We would learn later that this was a bit of foreshadowing.
Greg was teaching us about fire safety, matches, burns and smoke detectors, when the fire alarm rang.

We watched as the firefighters quickly prepared and got in the truck.
It was exciting to watch the firefighters come out of their dressing room and rush out to the truck. Watching both men and women getting ready offered us the chance to have a discussion about why we say firefighter, instead of fireman now.
We had just started back to learning about the fire truck when a second alarm rang.
We safely walked back to the mat and watched more firefighters get ready.
Both firefighters that were giving us our tour had to quickly dress, get into the second truck and leave.
Luckily another firefighter stepped in and let us tour through the truck.

By the time we finished touring the truck the second truck called out returned and we were able to see a demo of all the parts of their uniform.

Before moving outside to play with the hose we practiced “Stop, Drop and Roll”.
Then time for the most fun part of the morning, using the fire hose. We learned how to turn it on and off and aim it at a truck parked in the lot.
When we were ready to leave firefighter Greg gave each of the children their own fire hats to take home. It was a very memorable tour.